


Stunning Monochrome (the little pink heart remix)

by radialarch



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-07 07:02:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16403588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: “Tommy, huh,” Jon says, rolling his mouth around the name. “Okay. Tom. My soulmate.”





	Stunning Monochrome (the little pink heart remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speakingwosound (sev313)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Stunning Monochrome](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14637996) by [speakingwosound (sev313)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/pseuds/speakingwosound). 



> title still from "grey", as might be suspected; a very loosely styled "five times tommy saw jon go pink, plus one time jon made tommy blush."
> 
> thanks to gdgdbaby for handholding and encouragement!

**1.**

By the time Tommy gets to the Senate, he has it all planned out. His wardrobe is inoffensive, the tags proclaiming each item gray, pale blue, tan, beige; he doesn’t go for patterns much. He’s got shape-coding down to a science, books and files and everything in between. It’s not hard, really. He used to ask his parents about colors when he was a kid, like everyone else, but he’d learned to avoid it long before they finalized the divorce.

Some people just didn’t have colors in their future. Tommy wanted to be ready for it.

The first color Tommy ever sees is pink, blooming across Jon Favreau’s face.

Jon’s the new speechwriter, one that the Senator didn’t want to hire. Gibbs had to work to convince him. Tommy’s not even sure Jon’s gonna be here in six months, but Jon doesn’t look like he has any uncertainties at all.

“Oh,” he says, eyes opening wide. “Hi.”

Tommy's still got his hand outstretched. Jon's fingers wrap around his briefly, the skin whiter over the knuckles, bluish veins visible beneath the skin. Tommy stares, has to make himself let go. “Hi,” he says, the word scraped out of his throat. “Um. Jon.”

“That's me,” Jon says easily, grinning. Tommy can see the pink tip of his tongue pressed to a gap between his teeth. “So tell me yours.”

Tommy's supposed to be showing Jon around the Hart building, and he's not sure he can even remember his name. If Alyssa were here right now, she'd laugh at him.

“Tom,” he says, fumbling for something, anything. “Tommy Vietor.”

“Tommy, huh,” Jon says, rolling his mouth around the name. “Okay. Tom. My soulmate.”

 

**2.**

“I,” Jon says, “um, I haven’t done this before.”

Tommy pauses with his shirt halfway over his head. “This,” he says stupidly, and looks at Jon. His teeth are pressed into his bottom lip; there’s a dull flush over his face. It takes Tommy another moment to struggle out of his shirt and say again, questioning, “This?” His voice goes higher than he meant. _I haven’t done this before. I haven’t done—_

“A lot of people wait,” Jon says, defensive, pink spreading down to his chest. His bare shoulders are hunching in now; he doesn’t quite wrap his arms around himself, but it looks like he wants to. “And I hadn’t found. You know. You.”

Something in Tommy’s chest seizes painfully. Of course Jon had waited. That’s the story he knows, the way his parents found each other — it’s the only thing Jon could have done. Jon’s an idealist, Tommy knows, a fucking romantic, and somehow the universe put Jon’s tender heart into Tommy’s inadequate hands and told him, _Take care of this_.

Tommy wants to. Tommy’s trying.

“Jon,” he says, then louder so Jon will look at him. He draws Jon forward by the hands, something fond bursting in him. “You didn’t have to do that for me,” he murmers, ducking to press his forehead to Jon’s. “You know that.”

“I know,” Jon says, snappish. Then, softer: “I wanted to.”

Tommy hadn’t spent enough time thinking about this, it turns out: what it might be like, what having a soulmate would really mean. But even if he had, he never would’ve gotten it right. There’s a tight curl of warmth in his throat when he meets Jon’s eyes and presses a hand to the line of his jaw. “You’re gorgeous,” he says without meaning to, but it’s true, isn’t it? Jon’s mouth is red and the flush in his face goes darker at Tommy’s words, and somehow that’s the thing that sends something sharp shivering down Tommy’s spine.

“Can I touch you,” Tommy says, hoarse into Jon’s mouth, and Jon’s already in Tommy’s arms but they both know what he means.

“Yes,” Jon says. “C’mon, Tom, show me what you got.”

 

**3.**

“He’s really gonna run for president,” Tommy marvels.

“I know,” Jon says. His eyes are bright, voice strong and fervent. Obama has always embodied the best of America, for Jon.

(For Tommy, too, but lately he’s been thinking of someone else.)

“Gonna be a long campaign,” Tommy says, leaning back in bed, hands behind his head. He’s thinking about the Senate campaign in ‘04, canvassing, all the doors he knocked on in Illinois to get voters to turn out for a young unknown named Barack Obama. Maybe the country knows him a little better now — after the DNC, after Katrina — but it’s still an uphill fight.

“Worth it,” Jon says, not so much a correction as an addendum. Jon knows politics is hard; he’s just never let that be the only important thing.

“Not gonna be thinking that in December when we’re out shoveling sidewalks in Iowa.”

“ _You’ll_ be shoveling sidewalks. I’ll be writing speeches — way harder, by the way,” Jon adds with a grin, and Tommy laughs, rolls over to pin Jon beneath him.

“So hey,” Jon says, sudden, looking up into Tommy’s face. “Do you wanna get married before all the craziness starts?”

Tommy freezes. It takes a minute before he can make himself very carefully roll off Jon and say, “What?” through the ringing in his ears.

Jon’s grin fades. “Well, if we do, that’s one less thing to worry about in the middle of a campaign.”

Jon says it so easily, like there’s no doubt in his mind that the two of them would get married one day — because of course there isn’t, of course the only question in Jon’s mind is _when_.

Tommy’s been to weddings. thought about them abstractly, but — the enormity of the idea catches in his throat — he’s somehow never imagined it for himself. It was an idea that seemed out of reach, and even when he found Jon he hadn’t thought far enough to think about this.

“Tom?” Jon says, uncertain. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Tommy’s thinking about Jon five, ten years from now, still with the same hopeful lilt to his voice. Tommy, older, greyer, hopefully wiser, still being enough for him. Because Tommy knows this now: it will not be Jon Favreau who fails him in this universe. It will be Jon who, time and time again, somehow manages to find in Tommy what he deserves.

“You don’t want that,” Tommy says roughly, and knows that to be true. “Jon. You don’t want something thrown together because it’ll be easy. You want to invite all the people you’ve known since middle school and have photographers and dancing and a— a giant fucking cake, tell me you don’t.”

“So what if I do,” Jon says, his ears gone a dull red. “I don’t _need_ it. I just need you.”

“Jon—” and there’s something in Tommy’s throat again, making him hoarse— “You have me. You’re gonna have me. Nothing’s gonna change that — not this campaign, not if we actually pull this off and elect Obama the president of the fucking United States, I promise.”

“What about you?” Jon asks, eyes wide and luminous. “Tell me what you want.”

“Jon,” Tommy says, “baby, I already got it,” and watches the flush travel down under Jon’s collar. “I don’t need a wedding to know.”

“Okay,” Jon says, “good,” trying to hide his face behind a forearm and pull Tommy closer all at once, and Tommy loves him, can’t fathom how much he does, how it can all possibly fit in the narrow confines of his body. “So we’ve got that clear.”

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “We’ll do it right one day, all right? As big and fancy as you want.”

 

**4.**

CNN calls Ohio while Jon is on the phone. The room explodes, one joyous smear of noise, and Tommy’s on his feet, feeling gone from his limbs, watching Jon fold himself under his desk with his hand cupped around the mouthpiece. 

They hoped they might win, back in 2007 when Obama declared; they thought they might win, watching caucus-goers in Iowa declare their votes for a black Senator from Chicago; but the reality of this is a world away from the possibility, and Tommy feels like he’s taken one small uncertain step and stumbled into a whole new life.

They won.

He’s stumbling across the few steps between his desk and Jon’s, half-shouting congratulations he doesn’t have to think to formulate, and by the time he’s reached down a hand Jon’s climbing to his feet, dusting off his knees with a sheepish look.

“Hey,” Jon says, a wavering rasp in his voice. “I just. Had to finish the call. You know.”

“Yeah,” Tommy says, struck dumb by the way Jon looks, shaky and full of wonder. Jon’s the speechwriter, the one who talks about hope and change, and Tommy loves the way it makes Jon blaze, lit up from the inside, looking toward something Tommy can’t quite see. 

Tonight Jon’s brilliant, flushed pink with excitement, the brightest thing in the room, and Tommy wants, needs to touch him, feel that he’s real.

“Tommy,” Jon says when Tommy pulls him in, tucking his face into the crook of Tommy’s neck. “We did it.”

“We did,” Tommy agrees, the words pulled tight in his throat. “God, we did it.”

“Four years, man.” Jon pulls away so he can look up into Tommy’s face, a grin spreading steady, inexorable across his mouth. “Imagine what could happen.”

And that’s Jon all over, looking into the future even at this moment, always forward. “I love you,” Tommy blurts out, sudden, unplanned. His hands are tight on Jon’s shoulders, as if that could keep the dizzying unreality at bay. “I— you know that, right?”

“Of course I do,” Jon says, easy as anything, and kisses him once, twice, joy thick his voice, strong as any color. “C’mon, Tom. Let’s do this.”

 

**5.**

“I’m, uh, thinking about leaving,” says Jon. “Is that weird?”

Jon’s tucked against Tommy’s front, shoulders pressed to his chest, so Tommy can feel Jon ducking his head, self-conscious. “Leaving,” Tommy repeats. “Here?”

The truth is, Tommy’s been thinking about it, too. People burn out at the White House — it’s a hard job, and demands everything. Lovett left, just like Gibbs, like Plouffe, like Axe, and the clock’s ticking down for them, too.

“Does Obama know?”

Jon shakes his head. “No way,” he says. “I mean, what am I gonna tell him?”

“You’re gonna have to figure it out,” Tommy points out. “He’s not gonna let you sneak away in the middle of the night.”

“Well, yeah,” Jon says, “obviously,” twisting around and reaching one long arm over to pinch at Tommy’s side. “But I thought— I wanted to talk to you first.”

Tommy probably shouldn’t find that such a surprise. He does, anyway, a pleased sort of thrill, that Jon’s made room in his future for him. It’s been years since they first met and Tommy’s world burst into color, but it still makes something bloom, warm and fond in his chest.

“Not so weird,” Tommy says, pressing a kiss to the back of Jon’s neck. “I’ve kind of been thinking about it, too.”

Saying it out loud, to Jon — that makes the possibility real. 

Tommy started working for Obama in 2004, because he’d read the book of an Illinois state senator running for US Senate and liked it. It was his second job out of college, after John Edwards’ short-lived run, and since then he’d gone from job title to job title but what he wanted had stayed the same. He wanted to help Obama do his job; he wanted to make the world a little better, and staying was the best way he could.

Now, though, what he wants would come with him.

“Yeah?” Jon says, a hopeful little grin tugging up his mouth just where Tommy can see. “What were you planning on doing?”

They used to play this game, long before they actually made it to the White House, dreaming up a future for themselves too far off to take seriously. Not so different from what they’re doing now, really — but this time, it’s not pretend.

“Remember when we used to talk about this?” Tommy says. “In Chicago.”

“Sure I do,” Jon says, easy. “We were smug little fuckers,” he laughs, tossing his head back, solid against Tommy’s sternum. “So sure things were gonna work out.”

“We talked so much shit,” Tommy agrees. “God. We didn’t know _anything_.”

“We figured it out,” Jon says. “We got better. We could probably do it better, now. You know. Consulting. Screenwriting.”

“That fucking show.” Tommy laughs, but there’s a curious reckless stirring rising up in him. “You wanna do it?” He’d worried before, about rejection rates and demand, the uncertain world of television. But none of that seems to matter in the face of Jon turning to beam at him with quiet, brilliant certainty.

Tommy would rather fail with Jon than succeed with anyone else.

“Yeah,” Jon says, “let’s do it,” and maybe Jon means this, leaving, the show, but Tommy suspects Jon might be saying something else, something he’s been saying the whole time. Maybe what Jon means, keeps saying over and over, is _always_.

* * *

**(+1)**

Jon waits until they’re back in their rooms to say, “Hey.”

He’s slanting a look at Tommy, suddenly shy, reaching out to catch hold of Tommy’s hand. The ring glints off his finger, smooth and strange against his skin. Looking at Jon, Tommy’s reminded of the first time they’d fucked. Jon had been— nervous, maybe, but excited, too, ready to stop waiting, ready for _Tommy_. It’s not an expression Tommy sees often. He turns to Jon, head tilted in a question, and Jon grins back, squaring his shoulders, confidence slipping back into him even as a flush overtakes his face.

“I, um,” he says. “I got you a surprise.”

“You got me something?” Tommy blinks, startled and guilty all at once. “I didn’t— you didn’t need to do that, you already—” _Married me,_ is on the tip of Tommy’s tongue, and really, isn’t that the best thing anyone’s ever gotten him?

“Not exactly.” Jon’s biting his lip, white teeth pressed into his plush pink bottom lip. “But— well, think you’re gonna like it.”

He’s leading Tommy back toward the bed, undoing his tie with one hand as he goes. “Is this the surprise?” Tommy says, teasing, even as he follows suit. “Hate to break it to you, but I’ve already seen you naked.”

“Shut up,” Jon responds, pink-cheeked and laughing. “Just— shut up, all right?”

Tommy can do that. Tommy’s willing to do a lot of things, for Jon.

He sways back, undoing the buttons of his shirt and watching Jon do the same. And it’s true, it’s not the first time they’ve done this anymore — not the first time they’ve done a lot of things — but there’s a faint thrill in Tommy’s stomach that never goes away, when Jon shrugs his shirt off his shoulders and lets Tommy look at him, want him.

Then Jon’s reaching down, skimming his dark blue pants down his hips, and Tommy says, nearly choking on his tongue, “Oh my god.”

“So you do like it,” Jon says, and he’s wearing fucking— panties, simple, white, a hint of lace around the waistband, but they’re definitely—

“The whole time?” Tommy says, voice sliding upward, “You thought, you were planning— how long?”

“Well, I didn’t have time in between to change, did I?” Jon grouses gently. Tommy can see the outline of Jon’s cock under the thin fabric. “Thought of it a couple weeks ago, just thought— you might like it, that’s all.”

“I do,” Tommy blurts out immediately, and feels his ears heat up. “I mean, I— you look— you thought I might like it?” It’s not like they’d talked about it. Tommy hadn’t asked, but Jon had given it to him anyway. Jon was a surprise when Tommy found him and his colors at once, nearly a decade ago, and since then Jon just keeps surprising Tommy, again and again and again.

“Good,” Jon says, stepping closer so he can pull Tommy into a kiss, his fingers curled at the back of Tommy’s neck. “Good,” he says again, then drops his forehead onto Tommy’s shoulder, laughing. “Look, you know these are kind of uncomfortable, they’re not really built for— show some appreciation here and take me out of them.”

“You’re crazy,” Tommy says immediately, but he’s laughing, too, reaching down to _touch_ now that he has permission. The elastic’s thinner, sharper, digging into the pads of his fingers when he slips them under the waistband, the lace scratchy where it touches his skin. Jon had worn this, kept it secret because he’d wanted to let Tommy have this, and Tommy might just combust from how hot that is. 

“Just about you.” A dumb line, old and tired; but Jon’s grinning crookedly up at Tommy, flushed and bright-eyed, and something in Tommy’s chest stutters anyway. 

“Love you,” Tommy murmurs, too dizzy to say it clear. He’s slipping the panties down Jon’s ass, tugging him closer, his own dick aching inside his pants. “You’re fucking— c’mon, show me, let me see you.”

“Got all the time in the world,” Jon says, even as he’s shifting into Tommy’s grasp, hips jerking minutely when the panties slide low enough for his cock to spring free. “You put a ring on it, you know.”

“I do, did, yeah,” Tommy says, turning his head to press a kiss to where Jon’s gripping his shoulder, the cool metal of the ring. It’s funny, he used to think he’d never have enough time for everything he wanted. Jon keeps proving him wrong. “I wanna,” he says, tongue thick in his mouth, “I wanna taste you, all right?”

He’s scarlet, he can tell, heat flooding his face, the back of his neck, but none of it matters when Jon says, “Yes,” head ducked but mouth twisted into a grin, and lets Tommy lead him into the bathroom.

Jon’s still got the panties twisted around his legs. He’s watching Tommy undress, making no effort to untangle himself. By the time Tommy’s turned on the shower, there’s a thin red mark crossing the middle of his thighs under the lace, and he shudders when Tommy traces along them, fingers slick under the hot water. 

“God,” Tommy says softly, pressing Jon against the shower wall, and slides down to his knees.

They don’t do this often. Jon gets embarrassed by it sometimes, by how much he likes it. But Tommy wants this today, wants to give it to Jon. He has one hand careful on Jon’s calf and the other spreading Jon’s cheeks, and he strokes a thumb across his hole to hear the hitch in Jon’s breath, feel the tension in his thighs.

“Tommy,” Jon says, high and tight over the sound of the water.

“Yeah,” Tommy says, fingers digging harder into the curve of Jon’s ass, “I got you, come on,” and leans forward to put his mouth where Jon wants.

Jon’s loud, vocal, which is how Tommy likes it. He’s letting bitten-off sounds escape through his teeth, twitching when Tommy circles the tip of his tongue around his rim. Tommy loves that, the slow winding up of desire; he can feel Jon getting more desperate, shoving back against Tommy, panting out nonsense-syllables into the steam-thick air.

“ _Tommy_ ,” Jon whines, “come on, I need—”

The muscles of Jon’s belly are pulled tight, and the rest of his sentence dissolves when Tommy slides his hand down, finally wraps it around his dick.

“Yeah, show me, baby,” Tommy says into Jon’s water-slick skin, dragging his hand down Jon’s length. Jon’s so slick now, so open for Tommy, torn between pressing up into Tommy’s grasp and back onto Tommy’s tongue. Tommy made him like this, toes curled in pleasure, sides quivering — Jon let Tommy have this, gave himself over, something Tommy never thought he’d have.

“Gonna come,” Jon says through clenched teeth, “I’m—”

Jon’s quiet, when he spills over Tommy’s hand, head thrown back, throat quivering. Tommy strokes him through it, sucking a mark onto Jon’s hip, and thinks he’s never loved him more.

“Wow,” Jon says when he catches his breath. The warm water’s running out; he turns and steps out of the panties, wet and twisted, probably beyond hope. “Should I do this again?”

“You’re gonna kill me,” Tommy says, half-despairing, and Jon just laughs, reaches down to pull Tommy up to his feet.

“Come on,” he says, and turns the water off. “We’ve got a whole wedding bed out there.” He throws a look down at Tommy’s dick, almost coy. “And we could do something about that.”

“Whatever you want,” Tommy says. Something’s tightening in his chest again, safe inside the lattice of his ribs. “However you want.”

“I know.” Jon’s pink, flushed from the shower still, but his voice is clear, warm with affection. “Lucky me.”


End file.
